Language and words in the news – 22nd February, 2013

This post contains a selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular.

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Pitch perfect
… Dr Werker … and her colleague Judit Gervain explain that what the tykes discriminate is prosody, or cues which relate to pitch and duration of words in an utterance. And prosody, in turn, serves as a cue to the acquisition of grammar.

Why tongue twisters are hard to say
A study of unprecedented detail now provides a glimpse into the neural codes that control the production of smooth speech. The results help to clarify how the brain uses muscles to organize sounds and hint at why tongue twisters are so tricky.

Language technology

Where life is tweet: Study ranks #happy places
It’s not just the wine. But the word “wine,” along with “beauty,” “hope,” “food,” and other words with happy vibes, help make Napa, Calif., the happiest city in the USA, at least according to a new analysis of 10 million tweets.

Videos

TED Talks: Could your language affect your ability to save money? (12:13)
What can economists learn from linguists? Behavioral economist Keith Chen introduces a fascinating pattern from his research: that languages without a concept for the future — “It rain tomorrow,” instead of “It will rain tomorrow” — correlate strongly with high savings rates.

Funny

8 New Punctuation Marks We Desperately Need
There is the lexical gap, but there is also the punctuation mark gap, i.e. missing punctuation marks in a language. Here are 8 new ones suggested, which include the sinceriod, sarcastises and the hemi-demi-semi colon.